Sugar and Lemons
by M.L. Shards
Summary: First in Forgotten Series. He felt violated. He had for six years. The raw disgust never left.


These things just pop into my head randomly and yeah…

Reviews are essential to my being, so please review

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They were fakes as far as he was concerned, all of them, just…fakes.

They came off as sugary sweet and ridiculously caring, helpful, brave, loving, friendly, but he knew the sincerity behind their words and actions only went so far.

They were all phony; none of them cared as much as they said. If they did they wouldn't have left him. If they did the good old ex-leader would have at least recognized him in some way, shape, or form.

He pulled his leather jacket tighter around him. It was January and the air was slightly chilly, but since it was California, he didn't have much of a jacket.

He pulled a yellow disposable lighter out of his pocket and a crinkled cigarette pack out of the other. Removing one cigarette he returned the box back to his pocket and lit the lone cigarette, quickly taking a drag. He threw his head back so the back of it rested against the cold brick of the high school building and closed his eyes. He knew he was out of place, because he knew.

He'd once idolized those "fakes", had even been one of them at one point. It didn't take long for him to realize that when he left the group, it was over…just over. His friends had been fake. His beliefs had had no solid ground.

He felt violated.

He had for six years. The raw disgust never left.

He'd given up TV…and radio…he avoided newspapers like the plague…if he heard once more about those multicoloured do-gooders someone was going to get hurt…severely. That was the one thing he'd kept from them. The one lesson he practiced, the one thing he enjoyed. When you're able to floor people ten times stronger than you even if people you dislike taught you how to, you retain the skill, it comes in handy.

He'd burned pictures.

He'd burned certain coloured clothes.

He'd burned address books.

Once he knew they were never coming back he realized he could handle that. Only if he never heard from them again, only if he never heard about all the good they were doing he could be selfish and resent them.

That's when he realized he wasn't really one of them.

When he'd felt the urge to hurt someone who had hurt him.

He'd changed over the years, dyed his hair, and dressed differently, acted differently, because being 'perfect' all the time had become sickening. It gave him a stomach ache, just like too much sugar does to everyone.

His father had remarried and he and his father had moved to a new town to live with her. He thought the new town would be the perfect escape. The fulfillment of his transformation, his metamorphosis into a new life, it was so perfect. His stepmother had sent him to the local high school to be, "normal" as she put it. It didn't matter if he knew all that stuff already…

Yet amongst his protests he had a feeling. It was good.

New friends in a new town, he could finally be one hundred percent free.

But no

Fate had a strange way of working.

When he'd arrived in class the first day a week earlier he had found himself face to face with one of the sources of all his problems. He was face to face with a problem that didn't even recognize his face, or name, or handwriting, or uncanny ability to seem to know everything with barely any studying involved.

He took another puff of the cigarette and restrained the tears that were about to fall from his eyes.

He wasn't a bad person, he wasn't fake. What had he done to deserve this?

"GODDAMNIT!" he shrieked tossing his backpack across into the parking lot.

He wanted to kick something, anything. He wanted to fight.

"Dude what are you doing?" He looked up to see a brown haired student in a red polo shirt and glared back. The student backed off slightly but pushed on, "You can't smoke here you know that right?"

His eyes narrowed, "Yes," he growled dragging the s sound on so it sounded like "Yessssss"

The student threw his hands up in a defensive position, "Just thought I'd point it out. It's not my fault if you get caught."

With that the student moved on and he snorted. He held a hand to his forehead, the cigarette between his fingers.

He'd been asked to stay behind the first time, the second he'd offered to stay behind. He'd seem one group of friends briefly before they left him again never to return.

He had called, he had tried. But the other hadn't. He just wasn't a big enough part of their lives apparently for them to return calls or emails.

Yet even though he hated them with all his heart, and hated all of the successors to them…

He'd never been happier then when they'd all been friends.

The first week of a new school was supposed to be scary because of what was new, not because of what was old.

He felt a sudden resentment towards the student in the red shirt. He hadn't been too goody-goody-ish, but still, there was an air of sudden superiority, or responsibility to the young man. The first day of school he'd seen that student on the soccer field and that hadn't been the same student who'd just talked to him. That student wouldn't have even bothered to attempt to warn him.

The student's new friends and sudden appreciation of the colour red hadn't escaped his observant eyes either.

The student in the red shirt was probably one of them. Fake just like all of them and being taught by one of the best. That made him hate the young man. It made him hate his stepmother, his old friends, but most of all…

"Mr. Stewart, you do realize that you are not allowed to smoke on school grounds."

His eyes fell on the woman addressing him, "I'm sorry Principle Randal, I didn't know."

"Aren't you supposed to be in Oliver's class right now?"

It wasn't really a question, but he answered it with a sarcastic. "Yes mam'"

He put out his cigarette on the ground by stepping on it, grabbed his backpack from the parking lot, and headed inside as the woman watched him behind dark framed glasses.

It **really** made him hate his science teacher.

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Guess who? 


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